


pavlovian response

by zalzaires



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zalzaires/pseuds/zalzaires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hates the sound of bottles clinking together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pavlovian response

 

He hates the sound of bottles clinking together.  
  
He doesn't know why, but he knows how and where he learned that he does. He'd visited one of Ivalice's famed pubs, once and only once, on a whim (and his whims were never left unfulfilled) to see what it was like. Overall: crowded, dingy, noisy, and chaotic. He'd felt claustrophobic, too used to the sprawling expanses of the royal architecture, places of high ceilings and beautiful stained glass. The dull roar of constant conversation made his head spin. He knew that if they could just see the sigil emblazoned on his forehead, to know who he truly was beneath the disguise... every single throat in the room would fall silent in reverence. It was a heady, empowering thought.  
  
It also was not a good enough distraction from that infuriating _sound_.  
  
Unbidden, he could feel his nose wrinkling in disgust at it, feel an automatic scowl contorting his mouth. It wasn't even the most outright aggravating sound he'd ever heard - in fact, most of the time he found the noises given off by glass to be quite pleasing. He loved chimes. He supposed it could be that it was an unrefined sound, so common that it offended his ears without needing any higher reason. But that, too, felt like a wrong answer.  
  
It ended up agitating him so much that he didn't stay for a quarter of the time he'd asked to have. He felt altogether smothered, and had fled out onto the street before even realizing what he was doing - the evening air felt so much cooler and clearer in his lungs, and it was like a vice was finally releasing from around his chest when he breathed it. He just felt so... indignantly, _helplessly_ angry. It was an awful, foreign emotion: true anger was rare to him. The prince was given more to fluttering, transient bouts of temper, never anything so very real and raw like this. And never for a reason that he couldn't define.  
  
It scared him.  
  
At some undefinable age in his life, Mewt had become aware that there were - little off things, here and there, and that if he pushed at them in curiosity, he would be assured and shushed and silenced, whatever it took to make him leave well enough alone. This felt like one of them. No, this felt like _more_ than them, because it was there in his chest, constricting his heart and refusing to let go the longer he puzzled at it.  
  
"My prince?" His escort's voice was strained, trying to keep his identity quiet while still remaining just barely audible. "Is something the matter?"  
  
He decided then, consciously, that he didn't want to know.  
  
"I'm done with this place," he announced. "It wasn't worth the time."

**Author's Note:**

> It's not overtly stated in the english version, but it's implied that Cid had a drinking problem at the beginning of the game - and it's clear Mewt looks upon his condition with some distaste. Even in a fairy-tale wish world, I doubt the Li-Grim could account for repressing every single little detail of Mewt's old life.


End file.
